Review: Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

I'm pushing aside the memory of my nightmare, pushing aside thoughts of Alex, pushing aside thoughts of Hana and my old school, push, push, push, like Raven taught me to do.The old life is dead.But the old Lena is dead too.I buried her.I left her beyond a fence,behind a wall of smoke and flame."

Pandemonium leads off exactly where Delirium ends. Lena has made it into the wilds safely and luckily was rescued by a group of invalids who have taken her in. This book alternates from “Then” which takes place when Lena first went into the wilds and “Now” which is when she is living in public pretending to be cured. “Then” tells about Lena learns to survive without Alex in the wilds and adapting to a whole new way of life. “Now” details when she is living in the city and there is talks of a revolution taking place. With twists.

I loved this sequel… loved, loved, loved it. For the first ten-ish chapters, I really wasn’t enjoying it mainly due to the reason that I was nearly as devastated by the fact that Alex was gone as Lena was. As Lena talked about being without him my heart was literally breaking, it was so sad and I spent the entire first part of this book crying 😛 Once it started to focus more on “Now” I started to enjoy it more as there is a new character introduced, Julien. The only qualm I had about Pandemonium was the alternating chapters. I read this about 4 months ago, so now as I reflect back on the alternating chapters it doesn’t bother me as much and I actually liked that part but at the time, it was driving me nuts! I just wanted to focus on one part of the story. Once I got used to that, it was ok but compared to Delirium where it flowed consistently in the same time period it was hard to get used to.

Lena is a different girl in Pandemonium. She is much stronger but is much more depressed. Lena’s sadness with Alex deeply affected me. But of course Alex is my book boyfriend so that is to be expected 😛 I loved Raven as well. She came off as such a hard, cold person but in reality she deeply cared for the people around her. I also, shamefully, admit that I did start to like Julien. I knew there was going to be another love interest in this book- it wouldn’t be YA without several love interests but I was surprised how deeply opposed to it I was. I seriously am Team Lena & Alex forever, so it emotionally hurt me to have Lena look at another guy. Needless to say I did start to like Julien as he was so innocent and naive it was almost hard to dislike him.

There is a major plot twist in at the end, and true to Lauren Oliver form, she leaves you with a cliffhanger. I won’t spoil it for anyone who has read it although if you haven’t read it yet: you need to! It’s just as amazing as Delirium. Lauren Oliver, of course, has another beautifully written novel under her belt. Astonishing.

I can almost not wait for Requiem… In the entire year of 2013, I know this is, and will be, my most sought after and anticipated book. It’s almost a tragedy though… because this beautiful series will end.